Fire after shop burglary causes $25,000 damage

Press, 14 November 1981, Page 6

Fire after shop burglary causes $25,000 damage

The police are investigating a burglary and fire which caused more than $25,000 damage to two shops in the Surfside Mall, New Brighton, early yesterday.

The fire started about 12.30 a.m. in Pan Pacific Cameras and spread up through the roof into Barnaby’s Bookshop next door. Both shops were extensively damaged although three fire appliances fought the blaze for Wz hours.

Detective Peter Gilroy, of the New Brighton C. 1.8., said yesterday that Pan Pacific Cameras was burgled about the time of the fire. The police are seeking a man seen acting suspiciously in the car-park behind the mall

just before the fire was reported.

He is described as a male, dark-skinned Polynesian, aged 18, with a large Afro hairstyle. He is of medium build and about 1.68 metres (sft 6in) tall. Detective Gilroy said the burglar had cut himself while entering Pan Pacific Cameras through a back window and blood was found in the shop. Detective Gilroy said the police were not sure whether the burglar lit the fire. There was no trace of a fire accelerant.

A camera and other equipment were found abandoned in the alley behind Pan Pacific Cameras and the shop’s manager, Mr Bryan George, said that only a couple of

pocket cameras seemed to have been taken.

“The fire just about wiped out all the stock, mainly ■cameras, projectors, and a lot of model sets,” said Mr George. “We’re looking at about $25,000 worth of tiamage,” he said.

The manager of Barnaby’s Bookshop, Mr Norman Webb, said that all his books and greeting cards stacked above one metre were severely scorched or burnt, and most of his stock would need replacing.

“I was astounded to see that when the firemen but a firebreak in the roof of the hairdresser’s next door, they cut out packed straw in the

roofing material," said Mr Webb.

Ail three shops had tightly packed straw in the roof and the mall was cluttered with a big pile of straw which the firemen removed from the roof to form the fire-break.

Until both shops are repaired they will do limited business, in a shared empty shop in Carnaby Street. The alarm was raised by a New Brighton volunteer fireman on his way to another fire early yesterday.

Christchurch detectives still seek the burglar-arsonist who set fire to the automotive electrical shop Robert McLean. Ltd, in Vic-~ toria Street, early on the morning of November 6.